MobiHealthNewsDespite so many apps and devices available today, and their promise to help consumers better manager their own health, patient engagement is still both art and science.
"Patient engagement is whatever the patient thinks it is," said Frederick Muench, director of digital health intervention in the Department of Psychiatry at Northwell Health. "If we start at that point, work backward by figuring out the barriers and the fitting technology in, we're able to overcome those barriers and judge success as outcomes."READ MORE

Are you a Democratic woman leader in Arizona? Do you know you want to run for office? Have you mapped your trajectory? Or are you harboring a secret desire to run for school board, legislature, or HOA but have talked yourself out of it? If so, we can help! We're the premier training program for Democratic women in Arizona and will train you in all aspects of campaign management, from how to develop campaign materials to how to raise money. With our training, you'll start out a step ahead and have a network of resources to help guide you through your campaign. If you're interested in learning more about this incredible program, check us out at www.emergeaz.org/training. Don't wait! Apply today!

If you are a members of the Nurse Educator Special Interest Group (Chapter 6), we invite you to use vote for your new Board of Directors. As the Nurse Educator Special Interest Group has grown in the last few years, it is important to review the Mission, Vision & Values (MVV) to ensure that the SIG is staying focused on serving our members, and defining our purpose as we move forward in planning future events and benefits for members. The Board of Directors has proposed a revised SIG MVV, and now it is time for the membership to approve those changes to be inserted in the SIG Bylaws. In addition to the MVV, you will be voting for the four open seats on the Board of Directors for the Nurse Educator SIG.
To review the changes to the MVV, and place your votes, please visit The Ballot Webpage

Calling All RN Night Owls! Land at O.A.S.I.S. HospitalOASIS Hospital, the Valley's Premier Orthopedic Hospital is seeking talented and knowledgeable RNs to join their world class team! These highly sought after PRN RN opportunities in the PreOp/PACU provide autonomy, exceptional rate, a family setting, great schedule, and pure joy.

"The hospital will never be healthy for patients if it's not a healthy environment for nurses, where their voices are heard and where they can care for their patients and use the full extent of their knowledge, abilities, and skills. After all, hospitals todays have become one big intensive care unit: all patients need intensive caring." — Tilda Shalof

In 2012 AzNA lobbied successfully at the legislature for SB1184 which says jail officers can't use restraints on inmates who are in labor or going through postpartum recovery, unless the medical staff requests them or officers determine that the prisoner presents a problem. An inmate who was restrained while hospitalized for a cesarean section in 2009 sued Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio for violating her rights. A Court of appeals revived her lawsuit last week after a lower-court judge threw it out in January 2014.READ MORE

Sixteen members and trustees of the AzNA Political Action Committee met on September 14 to review questionnaires and voting records and to determine endorsement for the November 8 General Election. Sixty-one candidates for the AZ Legislature met AzNA-PAC criteria and have been endorsed. A non-incumbent must have submitted a questionnaire to be considered. Their names are posted HERE on the AzNA Elections web page.

The first of three US Presidential debates is coming one week from tonight. It will be on September 26 on all channels at 6:00 pm Arizona time. General election debates for AZ are already completed for Dist. #15, 16, 22 and 28. You can watch videos of the debates HERE and also discover when the debate for your district will be held.

For over 100 years, The College of St. Scholastica has been preparing nurses for successful careers in healthcare. Now, our School of Nursing, one of the two largest in Minnesota, is offering our signature Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program in Phoenix. Online with minimal on-campus visits. Apply today.

The FlowSight offers high performance in a small package. Its design increases signal and minimizes noise to provide unmatched fluorescence sensitivity. Twelve detection channels simultaneously produce brightfield, darkfield and up to ten channels of fluorescence imagery of every cell.
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The Safford K-8 Magnet School in downtown Tucson is seeking nurse mentors to participate as a mentor to 7th grade boys and girls who have indicated an interest in becoming nurses. Orientation begins today, September 19. For more information please contact Gretchen Shine, gshine@comcast.net or 520-529-3329.

This project is a part of a federal initiative (NAP-AX-16-003 Discovery Infrastructure for Clinical Health IT Apps Cooperative Agreement) to create an "app store" for healthcare, where clinical users can browse and test out apps built on emerging healthcare interoperability standards, with the goal of creating an ecosystem of apps that can be securely added to an EHR (similar to how apps can be added to a smart phone). One of the grant requirements is to perform market research with potential users of this "app store" so we can tailor its design to their needs. As users and innovators of health apps, you are in a unique position to contribute to this important market research activity. We have engaged KLAS Research http://www.klasresearch.com/ to do brief 15-20 minute phone interviews with CMIOs, MDs, RNs and PAs. Their end product will be a publicly available white paper comprised of their analysis of the data from these interviews, and will serve to inform federal health IT policy. If you are interested in participating in this market research, please contact Megan Rollins at 857-218-3846 or Megan.Rollins@childrens.harvard.edu by Nov. 1, 2016.

By Lynn Hetzler Emergency department overcrowding threatens access to healthcare and the quality of that care. It can lead to delays in analgesia, thrombolysis, antibiotic therapy, percutaneous coronary intervention and other time-sensitive treatments. However, a recent study suggests the implementation of nurse-initiated protocols, diagnostics and treatments prior to treatment from a physician or nurse practitioner can improve flow in the ED, thus reducing overcrowding.READ MORE

HealthDay NewsSpirometers used in primary care offices are frequently inaccurate, according to a study published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society. Researchers tested 17 spirometers used in primary care offices with a waveform generator to assess spirometer accuracy. They determined the clinical significance of inaccurate instruments by applying the forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1)/forced vital capacity (FVC) error from an obstructed waveform to a clinical data set.READ MORE

Nurse.comNancy J. Brent, MS, JD, RN writes: I have received several comments about advance directives, including that sometimes they are not followed by hospital staff. The importance of doing so as a healthcare provider was underscored in a recent case (Doctor's Hospital of Augusta et al. v. Alicea, Administratrix, Si5G1571, Supreme Court of Georgia, July 5, 2016).READ MORE

The Associated Press via U.S. News & World ReportParents know the frustration of trying to get that gunky pink antibiotic into a tot screaming from an ear infection. A one-time squirt of special ear drops one day might replace that ordeal. It's only been tried in animals so far — chinchillas, to be exact. But researchers reported that an antibiotic gel coated the animals' eardrums and slowly seeped inside to do its job for a week, clearing up an infection that usually requires a 10-day course of oral antibiotics.READ MORE

MedgadgetWhile electric cardiac defibrillators are successful life-saving devices that have been used in practice for many years now, they are extremely shocking and potentially harmful to cardiac tissue when they fire. A new approach, that of optical defibrillation, may be a lot more tender and maybe even pleasant to get an arrhythmic heart into a normal rhythm. The investigators first showed that certain light patterns are pretty good at stopping arrhythmias in mouse hearts and then performed the same, but on a computer simulation of a human heart.READ MORE

HealthLeadersMedia Are your nurses engaged, committed employees? Or are they biding their time until they can go somewhere better? Job opportunities for RNs and APRNs abound, and even nurses who appear content may be planning their exit strategies.
To predict whether you face an exodus, take a look at the following five reasons why your nurses want out.READ MORE

News MedicalFor the 25 percent of type-2 diabetes patients who suffer from numbness and extreme nerve pain in their feet, a new dermatological treatment being tested by Northwestern Medicine scientists could potentially help prevent and maybe even reverse the neuropathy. In a study just published in Molecular Pain, Northwestern Medicine researchers showed that depleting a chemical called GM3 through genetic modification prevented the development of neuropathy in obese diabetic mice.READ MORE

Healthcare IT NewsAt the recent HIMSS Pop Health Forum in Chicago, Cleveland Clinic Chief Experience Officer Adrienne Boissy, MD, made the case that health apps alone are not a strategy — and in fact can hinder positive patient experience if they're not deployed wisely.READ MORE